a diner on a cold night
by not a straight trumpet
Summary: The brass section (plus Reina) goes on an outing while graduation looms near.


**a/n:** whoo baby i cannot stop

started this in december. finished it like an hour ago

* * *

"Asuka-senpai?" Kumiko struggled to keep up as the older euphonium walked faster, faster, ahead of her on the snowy sidewalk. The rest of the brass section (plus Reina, at the request of someone who absolutely was not Midori, not at all) trailed behind. "Where're we going?"

"You'll see, young Oumae." Asuka kept walking without another word. Kumiko resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"Yeah, we've been walking _forever!"_ Hazuki moaned. "What's so special about this place, whatever it is?"

"Nothing, really." In the pale, nearly blinding light of the snow, Kumiko couldn't see Asuka's eyes - just the white glow of her glasses. It was unnerving. "Taki-sensei told me to take all of you out on an outing, so that we could . . . bond, before the end."

"You don't have to make it sound that dramatic," Riko said, speaking up for the first time on the walk, her arm wrapped around Gotou's as they walked I'm tandem. Kumiko couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous.

"You're just graduating," Gotou added, in his usual gruff way, before settling back into step with Riko.

"It won't be the same without you as the president, Asuka-senpai!" Midori cried, clasping her mittened hands together. Little puffs of air came from her mouth as she talked, disappearing into the sky hardly a second afterwards.

"Uh, Midori-chan?" Hazuki whispered, elbowing her in a way that was probably supposed to look subtle. It didn't. "Asuka-senpai's the vice president."

"Oh." Midori seemed to shrink back. "Sorry, Asuka-senpai."

"Not a problem, little one." Midori blushed, grinning a little to herself. Much as she hated to admit it - _refused_ to admit it, really - Asuka's boastful attitude, her larger-than-life presence, the way everyone seemed to fall in love with her, they were all things Kumiko couldn't imagine the band without. She wondered what would become of it next year.

"Why did you bring me along?" Reina asked. Asuka stopped. Midori hopped behind Gotou, probably because he was the largest of the brass section's members, but in all honesty she probably could've hidden behind any of them and it would've worked. Kumiko wasn't sure why this was the thing that crossed her mind at the moment, but it was.

"Why, you're practically a part of the brass family, Kousaka-san!" Asuka let a grin adorn her face, as she often did. Reina didn't budge.

"I don't even know you all that well," she said, and this was true. Kumiko knew it was true - knew in some deep, hidden part of her that it was why she was trailing a few feet behind Reina instead of falling into step beside her. The night in the hallway still haunted her. What could she have done differently, said differently? This had been the Year of Asuka, or at least the Semester of Asuka. Reina was still closed off in some strange way. Graduation loomed close, two weeks off. Weather predications called for more snow.

"Well, the more the merrier!" Even Natsuki, who'd been looking at her phone most of the walk, raised an eyebrow at that. "Truly, Kousaka-san, what do you want me to say?"

"I . . . don't know." Reina's gaze dropped to the ground. "I just don't understand you."

"Nobody ever does." Asuka winked, clearly not getting the gravity of the situation, or she was and just happened to be ignoring it.

"What _happened?"_ It occurred to Kumiko, in that moment, that she'd never told Reina the full extent of everything that'd gone down. It felt like an invasion of Asuka's privacy, and anyway Reina had been so occupied with her own problems - with _Taki_ \- that Kumiko never really had much of a chance to talk to her.

She'd settled into a routine that was alright, sending letters to her sister and making idle chitchat with Reina on the train, but things remained unsaid and she hated that.

"It's none of your business, Kousaka-san," and at that Asuka's tone became icy and terrifying. Reina didn't - _couldn't?_ \- say anything in response to that, and instead the group resumed walking.

* * *

"Here we are!" Asuka cheered, spreading her arms out across their destination. It wasn't much - a little restaurant at the edge of town, falling apart at the edges but still filled with charm - but Kumiko was glad it wasn't anything terribly polarizing, either. She didn't know what she'd do if it was. "Table for eight, please!" she called after a waiter, who directed the group to a spot in the corner. Natsuki was the first to talk, surprisingly enough.

"So, I'm the new vice president now, yeah?"

"You have been since the end of Nationals, Nakagawa-chan," Asuka chided her. Natsuki waved her off with a lazy smirk and a flapping hand.

"Kidding, kidding. Ya nerds know I'm not being serious, right?"

"Next year is going to be a mess," Gotou grumbled. "Between you and Yoshikawa-san . . ." He trailed off, as if the very concept gave him the chills.

"I'm right here, y'know," Natsuki muttered. "I mean, I'm not offended, but still."

"So, Asuka-senpai," Hazuki - ever the diffuser of painful situations, it seemed - chirped, leaning forward on the table. "Why'd you bring us all here?"

"Why, to celebrate, of course!" Asuka wrapped a hand around her as-of-now empty glass and raised it up. "To Nationals!"

"To Nationals!" the rest of the brass section (and Reina) echoed, with varying degrees of enthusiasm ranging from Midori to Gotou. Kumiko fell somewhere in the middle.

"Really, though," and here Asuka's voice lowered to a conspiratorial tone, as if she were sharing top-secret information that would surely spell doom if it were to fall into the wrong hands. "I'm glad you all picked up the slack after last year." Natsuki tensed up at that, but Asuka kept going. "Through all the tremendous joy and suffering this year has brought, it's surely one you all won't forget, no?"

"Yeah, I guess not," Kumiko admitted. She wasn't _wrong,_ after all. Mostly, Kumiko wondered what "unforgettable" things Asuka was addressing.

For Kumiko, it was a mountain and a confession and a victory and sobbing, pleading, in an empty courtyard.

For Kumiko, she wondered if things would ever be like that again.

* * *

Dinner passed without much fanfare - there were a few toasts, ranging from the silly (the Tuba-kun series receiving a movie continuation) to the hopeful (Kitauji _possibly_ forming a GSA next year) to the heartfelt (unbreakable bonds having been formed, this last one courtesy of a very emotional Hazuki Katou) and Asuka handled the bill, and then the brass section (plus Reina) stumbled out into the cold.

"That was f-fun," Kumiko said through chattering teeth, and then she saw that Reina, next to her, was woefully underdressed and shaking like a leaf.

"Sure," she replied, looking right ahead, her voice not wobbling at all.

"Do you, uh, want this?" Kumiko pulled off her coat and offered it to Reina. Reina blinked.

"It's freezing out here," she said, plainly, as if she were the first person to point it out. Kumiko shrugged.

"I know. It just seems like you need it more than me, is all."

"Thank you." Reina pulled on the coat, just a little too big for her, and kept walking. Midori cooed like she was watching a litter of puppies. Asuka stayed at the front of the pack, indifferent, or maybe just pretending to be. Kumiko never did think she'd fully understand her, but she didn't think she really wanted to, in the end. Nobody likes it a hundred percent neat and tidy, in the end. Humans are a naturally messy creature. This was what Kumiko thought about while Reina bundled herself in a big coat Kumiko had worn a hundred times before.

"You look good," she said, the understatement of the century. For some reason, the cold didn't bother her much anymore. Surrounded by friends and strange senpais and _Reina,_ she felt warmer than ever.

* * *

 **a/n:** trying to get in as many pre-year two shenanigans as i can before the new movie comes out. still being attached to a fic i wrote a year and a half ago. missing kumirei. you know the mood.


End file.
